(For Friday Flashbacks I feature favorite recipes from the past that have been my personal favorites, and this Crunchy Chopped Salad with Sugar Snap Peas, Jicama, Radishes, Tomatoes, and Green Garbanzo Beans has so many of the flavors I love in salads. This tasty salad is Vegan and also fits the bill for Phase One Fridays if you're looking for a tasty and healthy spring salad!)

It's a sign of spring when I start making big crunchy salads to eat for lunch. My lunch salads can include just about anything that's in the fridge or on the counter, and when I come up with a combination that's especially good I'll often make it again the next day and take pictures for the blog. I love crunchy ingredients in salad, so the crunch factor from sugar snap peas, radishes, and jicama gave this salad that extra something that made it a keeper for me. The tomatoes and green garbanzo beans gave the salad some other textures, and I used a barely-spicy cumin-lemon vinaigrette that was perfect with the other flavors.

You may be looking at all the things going on in this salad and thinking that you'll never have all these ingredients at the same time. That would be true at my house on some days too, but use this recipe as just a template for chopped salad and feel free to substitute other things you have on hand.

I trimmed the ends of the sugar snap peas and cut them into diagonal pieces.

The radishes were cut in half and sliced in half-moon slices.

I love jicama in salad, but turnip is a good substitute. This was cut into cubes.

If you don't have green garbanzo beans, you could substitute any type of canned beans, rinsed and drained, or just leave out the beans.

I'm partial to romaine lettuce, and I like it finely chopped when I'm making this type of chopped salad.

And even when I have to buy them from the store, when it starts to be spring I must have my tomatoes. (Don't ever buy them if they don't have that tomato smell though; tomatoes with no smell will be tasteless.)

Mix together lemon juice, ground cumin, black pepper, and a generous amount of Vege-Sal (or slightly less salt); then whisk in olive oil.

Instructions:
If using frozen green garbanzo beans, thaw by running hot water on them for a few minutes, then let them drain while you prep other ingredients. (To substitute other canned beans, dump beans into a colander placed in the sink and rinse with cold water until no more foam appears, then let beans drain while you prep other ingredients.)

Cut pointed ends off of sugar snap peas, then cut in diagonal slices. Trim radishes, wash, cut in half and then cut into half-moon slices. Peel jicama, slice, and then cut in 1/2 inch cubes. Cut cherry tomatoes in half. Wash lettuce, spin dry or dry with paper towels, and then chop into pieces not more than 1 inch square.

Mix together lemon juice, ground cumin, Vege-Sal (or salt), and pepper, then whisk in olive oil one tablespoon at a time. Add enough dressing to moisten salad and toss, adding more until you have the desired amount of dressing. Serve immediately.

If you weren't going to eat all the salad right away, you could prepare the sugar snap peas, radishes, jicama, lettuce, and green garbanzo beans in advance, but don't cut and add the tomatoes or add the dressing until right before you eat the salad.

Everything in this salad is a low-glycemic and low-carb ingredient, and this could be eaten for any phase of the South Beach Diet. The green garbanzo beans, sugar snap peas, and tomatoes are higher in carbs than the other ingredients in this salad, so if you're wanting really low carbs, I'd use less of those and more of the other ingredients.

I chose the South Beach Diet to manage my weight partly so I wouldn't have to count calories, carbs, points, or fat grams, but if you want nutritional information for a recipe, I recommend entering the recipe into Calorie Count, which will calculate it for you. Or if you're a member of Yummly, you can use the Yum button on my site to save the recipe and see the nutritional information there.

More Crunchy Salads You Might Like:
(Recipes from other blogs not always South Beach Diet friendly; check ingredients.)

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As soon as I saw the picture of this salad, I thought YAY!! Kalyn says it's time for spring! Haha. It's true, little says spring to me more than the resurgence of some veggies that aren't root vegetables. Great salad!

Ellie, I think broad beans would be lovely. (They're called fava beans here; haven't seen any yet this year.)

Joanne, I agree, let's cheer about the arrival of spring, even if it will still be cold for a while!

Lindsay, glad you like it.

Nate, the green garbanzo beans are really good. They come frozen here. Thanks for the offer, but I think it's too late to plant tomato seeds for this year. My brother in law has some started for me in his greenhouse though! We started them in February.

I love all varieties of chopped salads! This is a great template. I've never had green garbanzos (chartreuse chickpeas?) before, and have been seeing them around the web lately. Are they any less starchy, perchance? I'm very interested to try . . .

Being a chickpea girl, how did I not know about green ones? I must find some and try this salad, Kalyn. I'm making a chickpea salad recipe today for lunch that's heavenly (from Mary at Gluten-Free Spinner). Interestingly enough/coincidentally, her dressing contains hot sauce and while that was a surprising ingredient to me, the result is perfection. :-)

Thanks so much for introducing me to a potential new favorite food, Kalyn!Shirley

Kalyn, what a fabulous salad. I love all of the crunch in it. We are big salad eaters in our family and often, it's the main meal.

I don't think I've ever seen green garbanzo beans. I see that a lot of others haven't either. Have to keep my eye out for them in the freezer section as you mentioned. It's always fun to discover a new ingredient!Sam

I'm happy that my salad is making so many people think of spring, even if it's still cold where you are, and that I'm introducing some of you to green garbanzo beans. They remind me of edamame more than garbanzo beans, but a nice salad addition.

Yesterday I made your Caprese Salad to feel the mood of Spring. Delicious, except the tomatoes were tasteless so thanks for the tip. Woke up today to snow again....arghhhh; so thanks for another delightfully colorful salad to boost us into Spring.

This may become a staple lunch for me when the weather warms, although in southern Ontario it may be a while yet :( I notice in the header that you call the dressing cumin-lime vinaigrette but the recipe calls for lemon juice. I am assuming that either would work? I think I will prefer the lime but haven't tried either yet. Soon.

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